Hush
by Nightjar
Summary: [AU, Slash] 'They made a mismatched pair when they sat together at every meal, Blaise coolly disregarding everyone in the room, and Harry bursting into bouts of hysterical, bubbling laughter at the most inappropriate times.'
1. Can You Keep a Secret?

Miss Moony would like to say that she doesn't own Harry Potter and that she had no help with this story from Miss Wormtail, Miss Padfoot or Miss Prongs.

AU and slash warnings, and dedicated to the entire crew over at the HMS Potent Serpent at SCUSA.

------- I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good -------

**Can You Keep a Secret?**

For Blaise's mum, things didn't go quite as planned with her second marriage. Johan Zabini wouldn't die, and after four years of marriage, she walked out, leaving her son in the care of his father, who, not knowing what else to do, left him at an orphanage a month later.

For Harry's uncle, though, the situation couldn't have been better. His freak of a nephew was finally out of the way, and it was unlikely that he'd ever be coming back. Which was a good thing, even if there wouldn't be a convenient punching bag for Dudley anywhere nearby anymore.

Mrs. Delaney worried about the two boys sometimes, Blaise Zabini with his dark, dark skin and hair and eyes and his cold gaze, and Harry Potter with his green, poisonous stare and his bloody, bitten cuticles. Because everyone knew that Harry was borderline psycho and Blaise didn't know how to care about anyone but Harry.

They made a mismatched pair when they sat together at every meal, Blaise coolly disregarding everyone in the room, and Harry bursting into bouts of hysterical, bubbling laughter at the most inappropriate times.

What no one saw, though was after dark, when everyone in the dormitory but Harry and Blaise was asleep, and Harry would crawl into Blaise's bed and curl up against his chest, the Italian boy's flesh and pyjamas stifling Harry's constant, terrified tears and giggles, and Blaise would turn to Harry and draw some kind of comfort from the smaller boy's presence by his side, and when Blaise kissed Harry; petted Harry, he sometimes felt a hole inside him begin to fill up, and for a little while, he knew what it was to be wanted.


	2. In Your Yellow Face

**In Your Yellow Face**

The darkness surrounds them, pushing in from all sides, threatening to suffocate the two boys as they lie huddled together. Harry squints, and then giggles.

Blaise's hand tightens around a fistful of tangled black hair. His face contorts in his sleep, as he scowls.

Harry giggles again, reaching out one hand to trace the black boy's features, and then rests his own face against it. Their life-breath mingles and Harry can feel warm water condensing on his cheeks and mouth and chin.

One of Blaise's eyes opens carefully and all that he can see is the green of Harry's eyes and the pale, pale skin that surrounded them.

His teeth bared, he snarls, and jerks away from the younger boy. Harry just giggles again and rolls off the bed, creeping back to his own.

The sun pokes up over the horizon, and the other boys begin to wake, but stay silently in bed until Mrs. Delaney comes to wake them all for breakfast, her yellow-skinned and smiling face poking around the doorway and gently telling the boys to come downstairs.

Blaise lingers behind when she's just left the room, and goes over to Harry's bed. He flops over onto his back and smiles widely, reaching an arm and dragging his index finger down Blaise's face, stopping when it reaches the older boy's bottom lip.

Harry giggles. Blaise curls his fingers through Harry's, and tugs him out of bed.


	3. Pants on Fire

**Pants on Fire**

Blaise sits alone in the dormitory and stares blankly out the window until Mrs. Delaney shows his father inside, when his stone-cold gaze shifts to the middle-aged man in the doorway.

Behind his father, he can see Harry's wrist in Mrs. Delaney's hand as she drags the boy away from the room.

Johan Zabini smiles hesitantly at the stranger in his son's body, and says he's come to take Blaise home. Blaise doesn't argue: he just stares until his father can't stand still any more, and strides across the dormitory and grasps his son's small hands in his own.

'Was that Harry Potter?' he asks quietly. 'Are you two friends?'

Blaise answers that he doesn't have friends, so his father doesn't extend an invitation for Harry to come and live with them, too.

Harry's laughter is bordering on hysterical when Johan Zabini takes Blaise away. Inside, he can't stop crying.


	4. The Truth From Which You Run

**The Truth From Which You Run**

Harry is dressed in the yellow-and-black of Hufflepuff House, and Blaise is surrounded by silver and green_harryharryharry…_ They still see each other in some classes, and when he hears about Snape telling Harry off for anything at all that can't possibly be his fault, Blaise's eyes harden, and he logs each incident in the little black book he keeps in his head.

He'll repay every entry double one day.

All the teachers turn a blind eye to what really happens when both boys go missing from their dormitories at night. McGonagall frowns, but grudgingly admits that if it's promoting inter-house relations, then she's not going to protest.

Even those who do see, like Dumbledore, pretend not to. No, the truth is too disturbing,_ they're only children…_ But it's the truth, and no amount of denial will change that.

Dumbledore knows it well. And that's the only reason he doesn't kick up a bigger fuss when the Minister claims that Harry's mental state is too fragile for him to be surrounded by so many people.

Harry is moved into the permanent resident's ward at St. Mungo's, and he doesn't understand well enough to protest, even when Blaise runs after him to say goodbye and they hug so tightly that neither of them can breathe but they don't know how to let go until the Ministry witch pries them apart and he knows that Blaise is his last link to sanity.

And then he is gone, because he never had a choice.


	5. PS

**P.S.**

_Dear Harry,_

_The _Prophet _says you've been improving lately. The Healers are supposed to have put you on a load of anti-psychotics, or something. Are you okay?_

_Things are weird around here without you. Malfoy's been trying to bully me into joining his little clique, but Susie says I'm better off staying as far away from him as possible. She says Malfoy would become a second You-Know-Who if he had the power._

_It's just starting to get really cold in the dungeons, now. I expect they're keeping you all snug in the ward, though. It feels strange not being able to kick you out of my bed every morning before anyone wakes up, like I did when we were little._

_Father wrote to me last week. He said I'd be able to come and visit you at Christmas. Susie and Neville can come too, if you don't mind. I've already got your present: I got it by mail order from the _Prophet._ I hope you like it. Is there anything else you'd like me to bring when I come to see you? Like that practice snitch that Diggory gave you after he first saw you fly?_

_I'll see you soon,_

_Yours, Blaise._

_P.S. I love you._


	6. A Rush of Blood to the Head

**A Rush of Blood to the Head**

Harry was silent when the three children entered the ward, followed by Blaise's father. He did not move, or speak, or otherwise acknowledge his friends' presence - he merely stared at the landscape painting hanging on the otherwise empty wall of the ward.

A Hufflepuff scarf hung over one bedpost, and there was a small, Muggle photograph on Harry's bedside table, of him and Blaise, arms slung carelessly around one another, standing outside St. Margaret's Orphanage.

Blaise took only a second to take all this in.

'Harry,' he said, and finally, slowly, the younger boy turned his head to look at his visitors. 'Happy Christmas.'

The sentiment was echoed by Blaise's companions - Susan Bones of Hufflepuff House, and Neville Longbottom of Gryffindor. They each held out a gift, but Harry did not take them.

Instead, he began to sing. '_Dance for your daddy, my little laddie-_'

'Neville!' a voice called out suddenly, from the other side of the dividing curtain, and the aforementioned boy donned an apologetic look.

'Sorry,' he said to Harry and the others, placing his gift on Harry's bed. 'I've got to go and say hello to Mum and Dad. I'll see you in a few minutes, okay?'

He darted off, before anybody had a chance to disagree, and Blaise stared after him for a moment, then shot his father a pleading look.

Johan Zabini got to his feet. 'Susie,' he said, 'come with me. You have five minutes, Blaise.'

'Thanks, dad,' Blaise responded, while Susie placed her gift with Neville's and then left.

'_-dance for your daddy, my little man-_'

Blaise sat carefully on the floor beside the younger boy, and Harry sidled closer almost automatically. 'I've missed you,' Blaise said. 'It's been… different at Hogwarts, without you there.'

'_-you shall have a fishie-'_

'Dumbledore says you're going to have to fight You-Know-Who, some day. There was a prophecy about it, even.'

Harry giggled slightly, through the words of his song. '-_on a little dishie, you shall have a fishie-'_

'Blaise! We're leaving!'

His head shot up, and then he looked back and leant towards Harry, brushing unruly black locks away from one ear and whispering, 'I'll see you at Easter, probably. Bye, Harry.'

Then in one swift movement, he twisted his head around and kissed the corner of Harry's mouth, leapt to his feet, deposited Harry's gift on the bed, and dashed away after his father, the strains of a childish melody drifting after him:

'-_when the boat comes in…_'


End file.
